A former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday said he would contest the 2015 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
He said he decided to run because the Peoples Democratic Party-led federal administrations from 1999 till date were purposeless and that there appears not to be a government in place in Nigeria at present.
Mr. Buhari, who disclosed this in Abuja while addressing about 60 different groups urging him to run for the presidency said he would make his declaration formal on October 8.
The APC leader criticised the PDP-led administration since 1999, saying they lacked purpose. He said in the circumstance, it is important for him to step in to seek an opportunity to salvage the situation.
According to him, “Today, we are in the 15th year of purposeless leadership by the PDP and all we have seen is unprecedented deterioration in the security and law and order situation, astronomical rise in the incidence and intensity of corruption, and in the failure of governance.
“And as we reach this last lap of the journey, I would like to request that we concentrate all our effort and energy toward realising and achieving change in how this country is run.
“The only way to meaningful change in this country is to vote the PDP out of power to which it was never legitimately elected, anyway. The task before us today is wide ranging and very great. The first and most important is to take away power from those who have been misusing it.
“Indeed, except for the call of patriotism, public-spiritedness and an abiding love for the people off this country, nothing will today make honest, honourable and sane politician want to be saddled with Nigeria and an economy in trouble and a society in even deeper trouble – with its perilous security situation, with its extensive and almost unmanageable corruption and with its pervasive lawlessness. And a government – is there really a government? – that is not working.”
A former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, had last week declared his intention to contest the presidential election on the same APC platform, Nigeria’s main opposition party.
Mr. Buhari, a retired major general, who will be 72 in December, was Nigeria’s military head of state between 1983 and 1985.
He had contested presidential election on three previous occasions, but lost to the PDP candidates.
The former military leader, who joined politics in 2003, contested that year’s election on the ticket of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, but came second to the incumbent, Olusegun Obasanjo.
In 2007, he ran again on the platform of the same party, but lost to PDP’s Umaru Yar’Adua.
Mr. Buhari quit the ANPP to float the Congress for Progressives Change, CPC, became its standard bearer in the 2011 presidential poll, but was defeated by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Source: Premiumtimes
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